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Month: April 2016

Easy to remember? Those are my three most important rules, because that is exactly my weakest point! I wrote a blog post a while back about hitting the snooze button on life. That is what I was doing – I kept putting off acting on something, until I knew a bit more, or had studied further or ….. whatever other excuse I could think of

I think the biggest thing that stops us (well definitely me!) from taking action is fear of failure. That comes from a basic misunderstanding of the nature of failure. We are conditioned, to think of failure as a bad thing, and we take it personally.

My new response is to get curious, and wonder – hmmm – what could I change? What can I do differently to get a different result?

In fact, failure is essential for success! If you want to change, you have to try something new, and of course, that involves learning new skills and making mistakes.

I first started work as a trainee accountant a long time ago. Pre computers! Yes I am really old! Everything had to be written up manually – that’s right – long hand with a pen, in these big old ledgers. At least it wasn’t a quill pen, we had moved to ballpoints by then. I made so many mistakes, and of course there was no “undo”. Luckily, tipp-ex had already been invented, but some of my pages had so many layers of tipp-ex that it was almost impossible to write on eventually. The only thing that kept me going was a sign in the trainee’s office that read:

“A person that never makes a mistake, never makes anything”

If that sign had not been there, I would have given up. Imagine my surprise during my second year, when one of the partners said that I was the best trainee accountant that he had ever worked with!

As far as taking action is concerned – small actions sustained over a period make a huge impact. I love what Rich Litvin (one of the world’s top coaches) has to say about this “I love to help my clients dream bigger than they ever thought possible, and to take smaller steps than they have ever taken before.

That has now become my methodology – with myself and with my clients. Setting amazing exciting goals, and taking really, small steps and the results are astonishing!

If you would like to learn more about this please send me an email and I will contact you.

I have been. I am really good about getting out of bed as soon as my alarm rings, because I know that if I don’t get up straight away, I will be on the back foot the rest of the day. I suddenly realised that I am not so good about getting things done that will lead to my future success – I keep hitting the snooze button on things that seem a little bit hard or scary. I find reasons to put them off – urgent work that needs to be done! A cup of coffee that must be made immediately! Some additional skills that I need to acquire before I can start. You name it, I have found a really good reason to avoid doing the one thing that will take me to my goals.

I received some really great advice regarding goals from my coach Andreas. He said that setting goals is useless unless I establish the right habits to support these goals. That makes sense – anything that I don’t have in my life right now, is by definition outside my comfort zone. If I want to achieve my goals, I have to go consistently outside my comfort zone! That is not going to happen, unless I establish new habits.

The important thing is to focus on one new habit at a time. If I try to do much, I will be overwhelmed, and default back to my old patterns of behaviour. So one new habit at a time. Rich Litvin who is one the world’s top coaches says “I teach my clients to create bigger goals than they ever thought possible, and to take smaller steps than they have ever taken before”

Small steps, huge goals! I love that!

The number one habit that I am going to establish, starting today is planning. I have drawn up a plan for the week, with my goals and actions, and then each evening I will plan the next day’s actions and outcomes. I will publish the plans and actions on my blog. By putting this in my newsletter, I am also creating accountability – If I don’t do what I have committed to, all my subscribers will know!

Steps to take

Decide on a goal

Choose a first step to create as a habit

Build in accountability (tell people about it, is a great way to build this in!)